Third Party Authoring Tools No Longer Required for Platformic Web CMS

At the end of March, Platformic (news, site) introduced a new Embedded Content Tool (ECT) to its web building platform that facilitated the easy use of assets in an enterprise’s media library. As part of its continuing development of a Web Content Management System for use by even novices, it was a timely release.

What they didn’t say at the time was that only six weeks later they would be releasing an entirely new version of their platform that would remove the need for Adobe Dreamweaver, or other third party web-authoring tools.

That version – v3.0 – was unveiled this morning.

CSS And Video Asset Tools

With a built-in point-and-click visual design tool, this version allows for the production of fully customized websites by novice builders -- and very quickly too.

Building on existing features, there are two principal differences with v3.0 over its predecessors.

A new Video Feed Tool, which allows a video to be dropped into any area of the screen

Platformic has made a name for itself buy building a web content management solution that allows for the development of complex websites in real-time without having to write a line of code.

Designed to keep IT requirements at a minimum, it offers non-techie users the tools needed to design a fully-functioning Web 2.0 framework.

Managing Dynamic Web Content

Using only a web browser, Platformic users can leverage more that 20 modules to easily create and maintain dynamic web content within the framework and standards set by the client enterprise.

Platformic Web CMS

Features already available included:

Easy page creation and incorporation into existing website

Easy content changes with real-time page editing

Scheduled work flows to keep content up to date

Ability to include podcasts, or other video content

Easy Design With v3.0

And now with v3.0, a whole new range of design possibilities has been included in the system. Using the layout and style console, users can construct their sites based on the image guide that is included in the system.

Automatically building a nested CSS structure as the user builds each page, this image guide can import a Photoshop file of their website, which will then act as a ‘how to . . .’ guide for each section of their website.

While previous version of Platformic already had this browser–based CSS generation functionality, navigation through the nested structure has been made considerably easier in this version. Users can now move easily through “parent” and “child” levels of the site and by highlighting the entire content of specific layers, enable the user to view all the content within a given container.

Platformic Web CMS

As the page structure is organized, the Tool Tip function shows exactly where the user is in the site and exactly what content is in what container as the user moves from one area of the site to another.

This eliminates the need to use any of the standard web authoring tools -- like Dreamweaver -- and allows for maximum flexibility in the design process.

Once the structure of the web site has been defined, a drag-and-drop Java tool can place visual content anywhere required on any page. The company says that using this feature, even a novice user can build a customized site in a few hours.

Easy Video Asset Use

The other major new feature – the Video Feed Tool - makes the use of these assets considerably easier by allowing the user to drop videos anywhere on the screen. Supporting .avi, .mov and .wmv files, the new version automatically ingests and transcodes these files into Adobe Flash without the user having to intervene in the process.

With this function, a user can select to play the video in the top of the div, in another div on the same page or in a pop-up box that can be built by the platform and displayed in any number of user-defined areas of the site.

For archiving, storage and categorization purposes, the video can also be added to multiple feeds, while embedded links can be displayed to allow access to the video through Facebook or Twitter.

Quality control is through the Administrative Console, while standard and widescreen ratios are also available and user definable.

Making Life Easier for the Non-Techie

Available from today, v3.0 should make life easier, faster and cheaper for enterprise users.

Giving users the ability to update and format content, it would appear that everyone in a given enterprise will be able to develop and manage text and video assets without a great deal of training.

However, it remains to be seen whether employees who are not directly involved in website building from a design or IT point of view will be willing to take on this added task even if the product enables them to do just that.

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